


like a flash of light (i watch my future rewrite)

by zoeyclarke



Category: The Haunting of Bly Manor (TV)
Genre: College AU, Dorms, F/F, Modern AU, Mutual Pining, Neighbors, One Night Stands, Rating may also go up in the future idk yet, Tattoos, or is it? bahaha, other characters will be tagged as they appear, they are clueless absolutely CLUELESS
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-02-22
Updated: 2021-03-12
Packaged: 2021-03-12 20:53:34
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 12,364
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29640501
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zoeyclarke/pseuds/zoeyclarke
Summary: Jamie sets her hands on her hips, working her jaw and looking anywhere else in the room. “Right, so, last night. That was...”“That was... a thing that happened,” Dani fills in rather unhelpfully. When Jamie says nothing, she adds, “So, uh, the reason I’m here is something I actually can’t remember.”(Or: Jamie drinks a little too much and ends up sleeping with her dorm neighbor down the hall. It should've been just another one night stand, but it's kind of hard to move on from Dani Clayton.)
Relationships: Dani Clayton/Jamie
Comments: 42
Kudos: 131





	1. something to remember

**Author's Note:**

> here i am, once again, writing fic to soothe my soul! i couldn't tell ya how long this one will be, and ideally i'd like to write some other things in between updates, so this may be a long and slow ride, who knows. i also have another multichap (ughhh) in the early stages of planning (did someone say happiest season au?) so i really am setting myself up for StressTM but it's fine, i'm fine, because it's all in good fun :)
> 
> special thanks to all you awesome humans who have read my previous stuff, y'all are always an inspiration. and thank you to the goofs in the damie discord for conducting a lesson on british swear words. (an extra special thanks to edna! you know who you are... or do you?)
> 
> fic title taken from "me & you" by honne, and chapter title from "tattoos together" by lauv. and one last note, i know nothing about university in england nor tattoos besides what google tells me!

The moment Jamie wakes up, she immediately wishes she could sink back into fitful, dreamless sleep. Every part of her body aches, especially her head (no surprise) and, oddly, her upper right arm— a mystery that could probably be solved if she opened her eyes, but forget that, it’s too bright. Why does the world have to have so much  _ light  _ in it? It’s wicked and cruel.

She lets out a sigh, effectively announcing to the room that she’s (partially) back among the living, and then groans, “What the  _ fuck  _ happened last night?”

Even through closed eyes and a pounding head, Jamie takes notice of Rebecca’s unrelenting annoyance. Her roommate, despite her own collection of faults, has never shied away from scolding Jamie’s poor judgment. But there’s no use arguing with someone studying law.

“Well, go on, give it to me straight,” Jamie grunts, peeling open one eye. But the morning (or possibly afternoon?) light slicing through the blinds may as well be the surface of the actual sun sitting right outside their window, so she lets her crusty eyelid fall shut again. 

“You are gonna be the death of me, I swear,” Rebecca sighs.

Jamie lays there facing the ceiling, picturing all the memorized cracks and paint marks she usually sees above her bed. “No, actually,” she says, shifting up onto her elbows and cracking at  _ least  _ three different joints in that small movement, “I think  _ I  _ will be the death of myself.”

“Fair point,” Rebecca agrees. “You  _ and  _ your shitty life choices.”

_ “Mhmm,  _ ‘ight, I get it. ‘s what I deserve for drinking on a Sunday night.” Jamie fully sits up, rubbing at her sore arm and squinting in Rebecca’s general direction. Her friend wobbles into view— in actuality she’s standing still, but in Jamie’s hellish hangover reality, everything tilts and spins— and wordlessly shoves a lukewarm water bottle and two aspirin pills into Jamie’s hands. Jamie drops the pills on her tongue, letting them dissolve there for a few seconds to quicken their effect, then washes down the bitter tang. “Christ,” she mumbles. “The hell did I do last night?” She looks up, and Rebecca’s turned back is a classic please-don’t-make-me-repeat-what-you-did-last-night-Jamie move. “Oh,  _ god,  _ Becca, what did I  _ do?”  _

Rebecca glances over her shoulder, biting her lip. She puts all her focus into sorting papers on her desk, then says, “Why don’t you check your arm.”

Jamie angles her head, aiming a long, dubious look down at her right bicep. Somehow she completely missed that there is a bandage currently stuck to her skin. There’s only one thing it could be covering up— well, technically, there’s  _ many  _ possibilities here, but Jamie isn’t keen on thinking those through.  _ “Shit,”  _ she hisses. If she really got  _ that  _ drunk last night, drunk enough to forget about a fucking  _ tattoo,  _ then it’s a miracle that she ended up back in the safety of her own room. She starts to peel at the edge of the bandage, then stops and shoots a glare over at Rebecca, who raises her palms in surrender.

“Don’t ask me what’s under there! I wasn’t with you last night.”

“Then who the bloody hell was? I couldn’t’ve talked  _ myself  _ into it,” Jamie says, scooting to the edge of the paper-thin mattress. She reaches down to yank open one of the drawers in the chest under her bed, grabs a random t-shirt, and pulls it on over the tank top she’d passed out in. “And we both know if I was by myself,” she adds, hopping down and wiggling into the pair of jeans she’d left crumpled on the floor, “I wouldn’t have ended up sleeping  _ here _ overnight.”

“Oh no, you definitely weren’t alone,” Rebecca replies. Ah, at last she’s clueing her in. “In fact, I had to vacate my  _ own room _ at three in the morning because you weren’t alone.” Okay, maybe not so much  _ clueing her in,  _ but rather  _ calling her out.  _

“Touché,” Jamie mutters. “And, uh... my apologies.” She presses her hands together in a less than sincere show of regret, then hesitates, surveying her surroundings. It looks like her side of the room— and  _ only  _ her side— was chewed up and spit out by a twister of some sort. But Jamie has her system, and nobody else needs to understand it but her. After a moment of searching, she plucks a belt out of the mess and slides it into the loops around her waist.

“Sure. Just give it a couple weeks before you bring another one-nighter back here. My sleep schedule can’t take it.”

A flash of genuine remorse crosses Jamie’s conscience, but another feeling quickly overtakes it. “So...” She bites back a smirk, hastily tucking in her shirt and securing the belt buckle. “Y’don’t happen to know...  _ who  _ was here, do you?”

Rebecca shrugs on her bookbag and serves her roommate with the thirtieth judgy look of this morning. “Do you really wanna know?”

Jamie lifts her shoulders. “If you know, then  _ yeah,  _ I wanna know. Who was she?” A few possibilities roam her mind, the web of options nearly as extensive as the possible things her new tattoo could be. 

“It was Dani from down the hall.” Rebecca says it like she’s simply informing Jamie of the weather— or maybe even less enthusiastically than  _ that.  _ She starts toward the door, but Jamie stumbles across the room to clamp a hand on her shoulder. “Jamie, I have to get to class—”

“Very funny,” Jamie snaps, grimacing at the high-pitched lilt emerging in her voice. But anxiety has her tongue trapped in its reins, and there’s no escape in sight. “Now tell me who it really was.”

Rebecca meets her eyes, and finally it sinks in that  _ she’s not joking.  _ Holy  _ shit,  _ she’s not joking.

“Oh my god. Holy fuck.” Dani. Dani Clayton. Dani, their neighbor three doors down who Jamie somehow  _ always _ runs into in the showers,  _ every _ single time. No way it was her. 

Jamie slumps back against her wardrobe, staring distantly out the window. On her side of the room the blinds are tightly drawn, but Rebecca has her blinds pinned up and the window is cracked, allowing swords of sunlight to poke at Jamie’s sensitive hangover-crippled senses. Jesus  _ fuck,  _ can the aspirin just kick in already?

“Are you done?” Rebecca asks. She waits a minute, and when she speaks again, her previously flat tone has softened somewhat. She steps closer to Jamie, a frown resting on her lips. “What’s the big—”

“Dani Clayton is  _ untouchable,  _ Bec. Even to me.  _ Especially  _ to me,” Jamie interrupts. Her eyes flick over to her friend, showing more white than green and practically bulging. “Please tell me you have a  _ hint  _ of an idea how I ended up shagging the shy American who also has a long-term  _ boyfriend?”  _ She lowers her voice for the last few words and is barely able to even say the last one. It’s her own mouth and yet Jamie can hardly believe what she’s hearing. What kind of twisted daydream is this?

Rebecca remains tense, but removes the razor blades lining her slanted brow. “They broke up. Long distance doesn’t ever work, you know that.”

Jamie rubs her arm again. “So they didn’t break up because of, y’know, last night?”

_ “No,  _ J, their break-up wasn’t because of you.” And Rebecca has the gall to look almost  _ amused  _ by the notion. Jamie can feel herself shutting down, her motherboard short-circuiting from the flood of new information. So she flicks on the only switch that still functions: dark humor that’s more misses than hits. 

“Probably ‘cause it wasn’t my  _ own  _ break-up,” she quips. She stays frozen as Rebecca joins her in leaning against the wardrobe.

“Stop that. Anyway, I think they ended things a few weeks ago, at least according to the gossip chain on our floor. So there’s no guilt necessary, unless you wanna start feeling guilty about my ruined sleep schedule anytime soon...?” She trails off when an almost manic grin appears on Jamie’s face.

“Only a few weeks?” At Rebecca’s perturbed nod, a bark-like laugh tears through Jamie’s lungs. The pain from it is almost enough to cover up the metaphorical pain in her arms from reaching so far for... what, exactly? An excuse? An explanation? A  _ release? _ “Good.  _ Great.  _ That still places me safely in rebound territory.” Jamie turns to face Rebecca directly, gripping her friend’s shoulders. “So I’m free! It really was nothing. No strings attached. Thank  _ fuck.”  _

The stare Rebecca pins on her just  _ has  _ to complicate things, however. “Really?” she asks. “You’re  _ glad  _ not to mean anything to her?”

“I mean... she’s  _ nice  _ and all. And  _ pretty,  _ I s’pose,” Jamie fumbles. She earns an eye roll from Rebecca, but still presses on, “But it’s called a  _ one  _ night stand for a reason, yeah? So all I have to do is avoid her in the laundry room and common area for the rest of the semester, and I’m golden.”

“... right,” Rebecca says. Jamie feels like she’s dangling off a cliff edge, and Rebecca is standing right there within reach but refusing to extend a helping hand. Alright, fine, she’ll struggle a little bit more.

“Well, you know her better than I do, don’t you? She isn’t the type to just...” Jamie waves a hand in the air, unsure what she’s even reaching for. “I dunno, hit it and quit it?”

Instead of leaning closer, Rebecca backs even farther away from the edge and crosses her arms. “She’s been in a few of my classes. We’ve talked a little. And she’s not completely useless in group projects. That’s about the extent of my knowledge.” She begins moving toward the door again. “But hey, you two were  _ very  _ drunk, right? There’s a chance she doesn’t even remember it.” Her phone chirps, and she fishes it out of her pocket. “Now I’m gonna be late  _ and  _ Peter’s texting me non stop. Wonderful.” Jamie wrinkles her nose at the name.  _ Ugh, Peter. That knobhead.  _

Rebecca gives Jamie’s hand a supportive squeeze— about damn time— then swings open their door. “We can analyze this all you want later, J, but I have to—” Her sentence, along with her feet, come to a screeching halt. Curious, Jamie leans around the wardrobe to see what’s blocking her.

Standing in their doorway is Dani Clayton, tucking hair behind her ear and wearing that tentative grin of hers like she’s not used to smiling often. She looks _remarkably_ well put together for someone who is surely just as hungover. When Jamie tilts into view, Dani’s eyes immediately land on her, darting like sparks straying from a bonfire. Jamie stares back. Just  _ looking _ at her is surreal; Jamie doubts she’ll ever be able to wrap her head around this whole thing. Dani is someone who has been so close yet so far away for the couple of months Jamie has known her. It’s the type of peripheral  _ knowing _ that barely counts— passing each other with a nod or half-grin in the dorm hall some mornings, and having overlapping followers on Instagram but not actually following each other.

Jamie  _ wants  _ to believe that Dani was her one night stand last night. She can  _ almost  _ believe it, can  _ almost  _ take Rebecca’s word for it, can  _ almost  _ draw up diagrams in her head explaining how Dani ended up not waking next to Jamie this morning in her rumpled twin bed. She can try to explain it or justify it all she wants, but it just  _ couldn’t  _ have been Dani Clayton. She’s too...  _ Dani,  _ and Jamie is too  _ Jamie.  _ They’re  _ just  _ incompatible enough for it to be ridiculous; the kind of incompatible where a puzzle piece looks like it should fit in, has all the right cutouts and edges to fit, but when it’s shoved into place, there’s something just a  _ little bit  _ off. 

Rebecca clears her throat, and the noise saws through the rope of tension woven between Jamie and Dani. “I’ll leave you to it, then,” Rebecca says. She gives a friendly nod to Dani, then squeezes around her out the door, officially kicking away Jamie’s hand and leaving her to tumble off the cliff’s edge.

“Hey.” Dani rubs at her elbow, and Jamie’s eyes try not to follow the sloping neckline of her striped pink tee. She can’t help it, though; the neckline is off-center  _ just  _ enough for a bit of lace underneath to peek out—

Jamie dips her head and swallows hard enough for it to hurt.  _ Get it together, you fucktwat.  _ “Hey,” she spits out after a painful delay.

“Um, can we talk?” Dani asks. Jamie knows that if she can just steer clear of those blue eyes, then she won’t be sucked in, and she’ll be able to say  _ No Dani, sorry, have a nice life.  _ All she has to do is not look into her eyes.

But then all of a sudden Jamie hears herself saying “Yeah.” She steps away from the door, moving one arm in a stiff gesture to invite Dani in. She doesn’t even remember looking up; the blue swept her away quicker than a reflex, and now Jamie is utterly screwed. Hopefully she can hang on for the ride, but she isn’t seeing any lap bars or seatbelts. This hasn’t happened before. She’s always had an excuse to fall back on. Why is it different this time?

Dani walks in and lingers in the center of the room. “Sorry it’s a mess,” Jamie mumbles. She snaps the hair tie off her wrist and claws her curls back into some sort of knot. 

To her surprise, Dani plays with Jamie’s apology instead of overtly accepting it. “Yeah, I...” She chuckles softly and leans all her weight onto her heels. “I remember.”

Jamie sets her hands on her hips, working her jaw and looking anywhere else in the room. “Right, so, last night. That was...”

“That was... a thing that happened,” Dani fills in rather unhelpfully. When Jamie says nothing, she adds, “So, uh, the reason I’m here is something I actually  _ can’t  _ remember.” Before Jamie can find any words, Dani turns around and starts stripping off her shirt. All the wires in Jamie’s brain are exposed and frayed, crackling with dangerous electricity. Since when did she get like this? She never gets like this. And what the hell is happening, anyway? Is Dani trying to retrace their steps last night down to the finest detail? Jamie doesn’t make a move, instead continuing to watch until a new problem becomes visible.

“Oh.” Jamie doesn’t feel that word on her lips, but what she  _ does  _ feel are about a hundred more less coherent words rumbling at the base of her throat. Dani is standing with her back to her, that loose-fitting striped tee bunched up over her shoulders, holding her hair out of the way to show Jamie her own bandaged tattoo, covered by that clear film that distorts it  _ just  _ enough to be imperceptible. Instead of her upper arm, Dani’s new ink rests just under the nape of her neck, stretching humbly across her upper back but not going past her shoulder blades. Jamie only gets to blink stupidly at it for another moment before Dani lets her shirt and hair fall again and spins back around. A pleasant pink has filled her cheeks and leaked into her ears, rubbing the shells of them an irritated red.

“I have these brief flashes of memory. Most of it’s just black. But the parts I  _ do  _ remember all have you,” Dani explains. Her eyes snag on the bandage poking out from Jamie’s sleeve. “And, um... no offense, but I’m a  _ little  _ worried about what our drunk selves thought would be good tattoos to get together.” Her blush deepens and the ends of her hair seem to frizz on their own as her agitation grows. “I- I mean, I don’t know about you, but I never wanted to get a tattoo in the first place. Just pierced ears at the mall when I was eleven. That’s it. I never—”

“Hold on,” Jamie cuts in, resisting the urge to rest a placating hand on Dani’s shoulder. (Which is weird because, well, who knows where Jamie’s hands were last night?) “Slow down. There’s no need to go mad about it, ‘ight? I’m sure we couldn’t have gotten something  _ that  _ awful.”

“But we don’t  _ know  _ that, I mean...” Dani redirects her train of thought. “Isn’t this your first one, too?”

Jamie tilts her head at her. “How d’you know that?”

“Uh, just a guess.” Dani swipes at flyaway blonde strands, then launches into a feverish pace. “So... I guess we should just bite the bullet and look now, right?”

“S’pose that’s a good plan,” Jamie agrees. “Can’t hide it forever.” For another endless moment, Dani continues to stare at her, and Jamie can’t help squirming a little under her skin. With the squirming comes a bitter thought, raw and freshly mined from the cave-in actively occurring in Jamie’s brain. Maybe it’s because of Dani’s enigmatic and ever-absent ex-boyfriend, or maybe it’s the gossip chain repeatedly branding Jamie as the sole lesbian on their floor. But before she can stop it, the thought escapes her lips and hangs heavy in the stuffy air between them. “Bet you know a thing or two ‘bout hiding, don’t you?” Jamie hums, evenly meeting Dani’s eyes, vast and blue like twin lakes. 

“Jamie...”

“Maybe you could—” Jamie bites her tongue, but that can’t plug up the flow of emotions behind her eyes.  _ — teach me how to not care, because for some reason I now can’t do anything  _ but  _ care and I don’t fucking know why.  _ She coughs into her fist and angles her body away from Dani slightly. They’re practically strangers, after all. Just neighbors in this run-down dorm building, nothing more in common than being students at the same mediocre university. How can Jamie yearn so much for something she can’t even remember? “Right, anyway. Just a one-time deal. We all experiment in uni, don’t we? No harm done.” She rolls up her shirt sleeve over her shoulder and turns her arm toward Dani. “How about you get mine, and I’ll get yours?”

Dani says nothing, just nods, and begins to gently turn up the edge of Jamie’s bandage. Her fingertips are fire starters, sending sparks careening to every corner of Jamie like her body is a pinball machine. Dani peels it off slowly, gingerly, like it’s a band-aid stuck on the skinned knee of a child. The stinging sensation lessens slightly when open air touches the angry skin surrounding the tattoo. Jamie hears Dani’s intake of breath— and it really could be anything out of an assortment of reactions, a box of chocolates filled with shock, horror, dismay, disgust— but she stops her before she can describe what it is. “Don’t say anything yet, let me get yours.”

And Dani complies, repeating her earlier motion of gathering golden waves in one hand and using the other to tug her top onto her shoulders. Jamie couldn’t get the image of Dani’s bare back out of her head, and now here it is in front of her again, offering  _ so much  _ in such a sliver of a view. Jamie tries to swallow, but conflicted desire has a chokehold on her. 

She holds it all in until she trembles from the intensity of it, forcing her eyes not to stray, not to draw made-up constellations between cute little birthmarks and freckles and wandering strands of pale hair.  _ Fuck,  _ maybe Jamie should drop out. Better yet, flee the country. Or she can just start small and run out of the building—

“Jamie?” Dani always speaks her name tentatively, like she’s asking a question she thinks is dumb. Jamie wonders what it would take to change that.

She only hesitates a second longer before she peels away the bandage.


	2. you'll be breakin' my heart if you don't stay

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “You, um... you don’t have to stay, you know,” Dani pipes up, risking a flighty glance in her direction. “I don’t think I’m injured enough to forget the way back across campus.”
> 
> Jamie meets her gaze, and Dani suspects that she only smiles to make Dani feel better. Why would she want to be here, after all? Surely she’s itching to leave. "I’d like to make sure you’re alright.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> a million thank yous to all the lovely folks who have read and dropped kudos and comments! i love you all.
> 
> chapter title from "stay" by the aces.

“But Miss Clayton, the library is so  _ boring.”  _ Miles’ protest, just as high in volume as his nose is in the air, bounces harshly off the walls and windows as they enter the quiet building.

Dani winces, directing an apologetic stare toward the glaring set of eyes behind the front desk. She corrals Miles and his younger sister off to the side of the lobby. “Remember our inside voice,” she says, kneeling so that she’s looking up at the kids rather than staring them down. It’s proven to be a useful tactic that helps children feel more listened to even when they’re the ones listening, especially when it comes to the Wingrave siblings.

“Inside voice,” Flora repeats in an instructional stage-whisper. Her eyes are wide and bright like the costume jewelry she likes to wear, big chunky rings with rhinestones and colorful gems that look like candy. 

Dani gives Flora a grin of approval, then turns her attention back to Miles. “Now, Miles, what would make you say that?” she asks. 

“Because it’s  _ true,”  _ he replies, looking awfully proud of this reasoning. “And  _ I  _ think you brought us here just because Flora likes the biscuits from the cafe.”

“So? You like the double chocolate muffins!” Flora shoots back, forgetting her inside voice halfway through. She whirls back toward Dani, her eyebrows sinking heavy over her eyes. “He  _ always  _ talks about them.”

A lopsided smirk tugs at one end of Dani’s mouth, and she’s relieved to notice her merriment finally reflecting on Miles’ face as well. “She kind of has a point, you know,” Dani teases. “Okay, so here’s the deal, guys: your uncle wants you to hang out here for an hour and concentrate on your schoolwork. If you are  _ good”—  _ her eyes slide from one kid to the other— “and  _ quiet  _ for me for a whole hour, we’ll pay a little visit to the cafe afterward. How’s that sound?”

“Fine,” Miles grumbles at the same time Flora chirps, “Splendid!”

Dani stands and leads them further into the library, passing the lady at the front desk with a sheepish wave. She settles her charges at a table on the perimeter of the room, assuming their inevitable restlessness will be better suited at a distance from the library’s other occupants, most of whom are students silently studying (or mindlessly scrolling) on their laptops, or people in group projects whispering their way to an agreement. 

“Stop saying ‘splendid,’” Miles hisses suddenly, snapping Dani’s attention back to her own table. The pair have already unloaded their bookbags, but in the process of laying out her tablet, workbook, and glittery pencils, Flora has taken to calling each item “Splendid” as she places it on the table. Miles fixes a pleading stare on Dani. “Miss Clayton, please tell her to stop.”

Flora’s little snicker hidden behind a curled fist tells Dani that this is more of a “bother-my-brother” act than showing off a cool new word she learned. Dani leans forward and pats Flora’s workbook. “Come on, Flora, the sooner you get started the sooner you’ll be done. Keep an eye on the clock— it’s just from now until four-thirty.” She starts to reach for Miles’ book too, but he catches on and flips it open before she can reach it. “And you guys,  _ please  _ just call me Dani. I’m not a teacher yet, I don’t need all the formalities, okay?”

Truthfully, Dani doesn’t blame them for the formalities. (And, yeah, she  _ does _ kind of like being called “Miss Clayton”— it makes her excited for the future.) Miles and Flora come from a well-off but fractured family, the history of which Dani probably doesn’t even know the half of. They attend an expensive private school not far from campus, and Dani walks there three days a week to pick them up. She ended up becoming their babysitter in a bit of an unorthodox way; their uncle is one of her professors, and one morning Dani showed up at his office for a scheduled meeting to find him not-so-subtly spiking his tea with scotch and shouting semi-coherently into his phone at a tutor who had just quit. After being slurred at  _ “Well, you’re studying elementary education, are you not?”  _ and offered forty pounds an hour to watch his niece and nephew, it was hard to turn down the offer. 

For once in her life, it felt like Dani had been in the right place at the right time. She was able to quit her job at the little cafe in the library— she knows it was a good riddance in their eyes, considering that she, in some inexplicable mishap, made one of their coffee machines explode— and now she spends time with the kids most afternoons, helping tutor them as needed. They’re fairly civilized children, so nobody really bats an eye at her taking them around campus, and they’re bright enough so that typically the only issue Dani struggles with is getting them to focus. And as far as issues go, it’s minor in the scheme of things; Dani loves hanging out with them. It helps her forget that she doesn’t have many close friends here her own age.

There is, however,  _ one  _ problem that comes to mind now that Miles and Flora have settled down and buried their noses in their homework. Dani gets out her laptop and opens it to the essay outline she’d been working on earlier for her psych class, but it’s impossible for her to concentrate. The assignment isn’t due for another week, and Professor Grose is a forgiving grader, but  _ still.  _ Dani likes having her shit in order maybe a little  _ too much— _ when it comes to school, at least.

But it’s difficult to connect her brain to the words she is skimming on the screen. Psychology is, in fact, the last thing on Dani’s mind— and yes, the hilarity of that isn’t lost on her, considering she feels more than a little insane at the moment. But Jamie Taylor is all up in her head, surfing Dani’s brain waves with supreme skill and a shit-eating grin on her face. Ever since Dani’s awkward exit from Jamie and Rebecca’s dorm the other morning, she can’t stop thinking about the blunt brunette. And it’s not even the missing pieces from _the night before_ that are haunting her— it’s what Dani felt when Jamie peeled the bandage off of her back, fingertips grazing the top of her spine in a way that felt so damn good it should’ve been illegal. Dani can’t be sure what Jamie felt, if anything, when Dani touched her arm. Surely it was nothing. Why would there be something? She bites back a sigh, knowing the slightest noise will poke the sleeping bear that is Flora’s curiosity.

_ It was nothing,  _ Dani reminds herself.  _ Nothing. Nothing.  _ She forces an expression of keen concentration onto her face, tongue poking out between her lips as she leans toward the laptop screen. But as hard as she stares at the array of meaningless pixels, the Jamie in her head— an idealized version, of course, surely not the same girl who marches past her in the dorm hallway and nods grimly in greeting while they’re brushing their teeth in the bathroom— fights harder to stay at the forefront of Dani’s mind. She dances around her frontal lobe, wiggles through her cortex, twirls down her brain stem. 

_ It was nothing.  _ It was the alcohol, it was something in the atmosphere that night. The sparks are gone now. The only thing that can’t so easily be snuffed out, of course, are the damned tattoos. At  _ that  _ reminder, Dani tugs self-consciously at her hoodie, which has been her intentional outfit choice for the past few days to ensure her little mistake is covered up. (Never mind that it’s nearly seventy degrees out.) She’ll get it lasered off soon— just, well, whenever she finds the spare cash for it.

As it turns out, an hour can go by in a blink when Dani’s mind is having Jamie-related turbulence. All of a sudden, Miles is pulling on her wrist and Flora is on her feet with her bag packed, bouncing in place as she waits for Dani and her brother to gather their things. After a quick stop at the library cafe as promised, Dani leads her pastry-munching crew out toward the quad. 

It’s a gorgeous spring day, but that also entails lots of sunshine, and it’s beating down fiercely on Dani’s back. She feels like her hair is a mane of fire, and any strands that aren’t ablaze are plastered to the back of her neck with sweat. She tries to fight the discomfort by taming her hair back into a very distressed-looking ponytail, then produces a blanket from her bag and lays it out in a shady spot on the grass. Flora seats herself on the edge, picking clovers and tying knots in grass blades. While keeping an eye on Miles, Dani gives Flora a tutorial on braiding the grass blades and clover stems together. Dani relishes little moments like these, playing with pieces of the earth in her hands, beautiful already but being made into something more beautiful, delicate green rings and imperfect crowns to tuck into hair.

However, just ten minutes outside proves to Dani that wearing a hoodie is lethal in this heat. She can’t stand the tattoo, but she’s not inclined to pass out in an effort to hide it. What are the odds she’ll run into a familiar face out here, anyway? It’s a big school. So with a touch of foreboding humming in her blood, she slides the heavy garment over her head, leaving her in nothing but a pale lavender tank top underneath.

“Seems you’ve got a real habit of removing your clothes around me.” 

Dani nearly jumps out of her newly-exposed skin. Her eyes flash up to find a troublesome green gaze situated above a crooked smirk. So much for it being a big school. Here Jamie is, a picture straight out of Dani’s head, breathing hard and wearing shorts, a tee with cut-off sleeves, and a light sheen of sweat on her brow. Her hair is tied back, but a few stray curls cling to her neck, and the sight makes Dani wobble. The last thing she notices is probably the first thing most people with one hundred percent brain function would’ve noticed: a soccer ball perched on Jamie’s hip, scarred with scuffs and streaks of dirt, shifting impatiently under drumming fingers.

Dani can barely process all of these details from her place sitting on the blanket in Jamie’s shadow. Then after way too long of a delay, she remembers that she’s not here alone, she’s watching the kids, and Jamie’s comment is, well, not exactly  _ appropriate  _ for an eight-year-old to overhear. (It shouldn’t be appropriate for  _ Dani  _ to hear either, actually, considering what it does to her heartbeat.)

“And... you have a habit of... playing soccer?” Dani eventually responds, tilting back her head to meet Jamie’s unreadable squint.

At the same time, Jamie and Flora let out similar scoffs and correct her, “It’s called  _ football.”  _

Jamie’s smirk grows, and she offers the girl a nod of solidarity. “You get it, kid.”

Dani’s chuckle oozes anxiety. “It’s _so_ great that you two are getting along.” _Why does that matter? It shouldn’t matter. It’s not like Jamie’s my—_ “Anyway, um. Flora, this is Jamie, my... friend. And Jamie, this is—”

“Flora Wingrave, splendid to meet you,” Flora introduces herself, hopping up to shake Jamie’s hand in a grand gesture. “And over there is my brother Miles”— she lowers her voice to that beloved stage-whisper of hers, and Jamie bends down compliantly as if being let in on a juicy secret— “I think he’s named that because he always wants to be  _ miles _ away from me.”

“Ah,” Jamie muses, coming down into a full squat and patting Flora’s shoulder. “Brothers, huh? Grew up with two of ‘em myself. When they’re near you want ‘em far, and when they’re gone you miss ‘em a lot, right?” Flora nods attentively. “Well, I’ll let you in on a little secret,” Jamie continues, catching Dani’s eye for a brief second, “The longer he’s away, the more time you have to plan a wicked prank on him.”

Oh great, now she’s not just incredibly hot; she’s incredibly hot while being a bad influence on kids. Dani rolls her eyes and tries to step in and bring the playful conversation to a close, but then Flora giggles, “I like your tattoo, Miss Jamie.”

“Oh, this silly thing?” Jamie turns slightly to better show off the inked flowers on her arm. “Glad you like it, Miss Flora. I’d like to get a whole sleeve down my arm someday, vines and leaves and petals all twisting together. How neat would that be?” Again Dani recalls the other morning after peeling off the bandages, how Jamie had inspected her arm in the mirror, then shrugged and said,  _ “‘ight. I’ve seen worse.”  _ Talking to Flora now, though, there’s a gleam in her eyes, like this tattoo hadn’t been a drunken mistake. Dani feels a prickle of envy at Jamie’s brazen acceptance of it. At least  _ she’s  _ good at faking it— unless...?

Then Jamie does something else Dani isn’t ready for. “How’s yours doing, Dani? Still sore?”

“Fine!” Dani blurts out, a knee-jerk reaction to shut the topic down. “I’m fine. It’s fine, I mean.”

But it’s too late; Flora has been reeled in. She spins back toward Dani, mouth agape. “Miss Dani, you have a  _ tattoo?”  _

Over her shoulder, Dani pins a look on Jamie, whose only apology is a grimace. She’s grasping at straws trying to think of how to turn this away from her, because  _ god,  _ she does not want to discuss what’s on her upper back. It was a  _ mistake,  _ just like sleeping with Jamie was a  _ mistake.  _ It wasn’t supposed to happen because it  _ shouldn’t  _ have happened. “Yes, I do have one,” she answers slowly. “But never mind that. Um,  _ Jamie,  _ why don’t you tell Flora what kind of flower that is?” She points vaguely at Jamie’s arm, and though Flora, precocious as ever, gives a skeptical hum, she nonetheless allows herself to be entertained by Jamie’s explanation.

“Well, y’see, this is one of my favorite flowers. It’s called a—”

“Pardon me, are you using this?” Miles appears, toeing Jamie’s soccer ball, which she had set down next to her for the tattoo exhibition. 

Dani forces a grin for this introduction. “Miles, this is my friend Jamie.” Never has the word _friend_ tasted so peculiar on her tongue. But she has a feeling anything else would taste worse.

“Cheers, Miles.” Jamie rises to her feet again. “Y’know what, I was just about to get back out there. I was kickin’ around by myself, but I’d love to have you join me if it’s alright with Dani here.”

“Uh, sure. Just be careful,” Dani says.

“Care to join us, Flora?” Jamie asks, wiping a curl off her forehead.

Dani stays on the blanket, watching the unlikely trio scamper off to kick the ball around in the open space, a safe distance from any nearby sunbathers or frisbee throwers. After only a minute of watching Jamie’s legs at work (and really, those calves never quit), Dani can’t be sure whether the sweat dripping down her back is from the oppressive heat or from Jamie’s inadvertent hypnosis skills.

She’s so transfixed, she almost doesn’t notice Flora come jogging over to take a drink from her water bottle. What Dani  _ does  _ notice, however, is Miles’ foot connecting with the ball a little harder than necessary, and like a bullet, it soars an impressive distance through Jamie’s outstretched hands and over the grass. Flora also happens to be directly in its path. Dani’s last brain cell is long gone, having found its new home somewhere a little more R-rated (and really, that’s nobody’s fault but Jamie’s.) So of course she doesn’t think it through before diving in front of Flora.

* * *

When Dani comes to, the first thing she sees is Jamie’s face swimming in her vision, and she considers passing out again. It’s easy to forget how to breathe when Jamie is leaning in close, puffing hot breath onto Dani’s skin and skimming hair off her cheek with barely-there fingers.

Panic darts through her veins, and Dani springs straight up, swinging her head around. She moves so fast, she nearly head-butts Jamie into next week, but Jamie manages to stumble back out of the way in time. “Whoa, whoa, settle down,” she says, hand firm on Dani’s shoulder. “Hate to break it to ya, Dani, but you were hit awful hard. Ought to take you to the health center.”

Just like that, as if her comment reminded Dani’s body to actually hurt, an intense ache blooms on her forehead above her left eye. “Oh, no,” she whispers, but it’s more at Jamie’s hand still being very much present on her shoulder than at the pain. Luckily, Jamie seems to read her mind and withdraws it, fiddling with her fingers like she isn’t sure what to do with them if she’s not touching her.

“Are you alright, Miss Dani?”

“I’m so sorry, Miss Dani! I didn’t mean to, honest.”

The kids are both hovering just behind Jamie, looking genuinely remorseful with eyes wide and mouths ajar. “She’ll be fine,” Jamie grunts, holding out her arms on either side to gently nudge them farther away. “Just give her some space to breathe.”

Dani lifts a hand and lightly presses her palm to her forehead to test the bruise; when the pain sharpens and starts to throb like a heartbeat, she can’t help but grimace. Still, knowing that the kids are watching her intently, she plasters on a soothing smile and says, “It’s okay, guys. Accidents happen, and that’s how we learn from them, right?”

“Right, so I learned that next time, I won’t, erm... kick the football as hard,” Miles says, looking down at his feet. (Dani swears she hears Jamie mutter,  _ “Or maybe at all,”  _ but she ignores it.) Flora delivers an elbow into his ribs, and with a pained grunt he adds, “I’m very sorry... Dani.”

“I forgive you, Miles,” Dani replies. She continues grinning through the pain, but it falters when she finds Jamie’s hard stare still on her.

“‘ight, Mary Poppins, you’ve done your little lesson. Now we _really_ should be getting you checked out.” Jamie drags the soccer ball toward herself with her heel, rolling it up her shin until she has it balanced on her hip again. It’s such a fluid motion, Dani would’ve missed it if she blinked. “This ball’s given me a concussion before, so I wouldn’t be shocked if it did the same to you.”

Dani stands, refusing Jamie’s extended arm at first. But when she trips over her first step like a newborn fawn, she has no choice but to hold onto Jamie’s bare skin, soft and warm and barely tacky with sweat. It’s an automatic response now for Dani to lose control of her heartbeat, and she swallows a sigh, wishing by some miracle that Jamie can’t feel Dani’s thrumming pulse where they’re connected. Maybe it would be best if from now on, there are multiple layers of clothes between them. No bare skin, no lingering touches. They’ve already done  _ more  _ than enough of that.

“Don’t need me to carry you, d’you?” Jamie teases as they retreat from the quad, ushering the kids in front of them. 

“No, no, I’m fine.” Dani clears her throat and decides she feels sturdy enough now to peel her hand off of Jamie’s arm. She’s not about to hobble along and lean on this near-stranger during the entire trek to the health building for half of campus to witness. Still, she recognizes the shadow of Jamie’s arm curving behind her lower back— not quite touching, but still there, ready to catch her if needed. An involuntary shudder snakes down Dani’s body in response, and she disguises it into a cough, hoping against hope that Jamie doesn’t notice. Brain groping for conversation, she grabs onto what Jamie said earlier. “So... do you get injured often?”

Jamie lifts one shoulder— of _course_ it’s the tattooed one that is closest to Dani— as they approach the health building. “Eh, only when I let it happen.” She winks at her, holding open the door for Dani and the kids and nodding at their chorus of polite _thank yous._ “Might’ve walked this path once or twice before, can’t remember, really. But it’s not like I’m on their wall of fame or anything. And they don’t even have a punch card for frequent visitors. Pretty lame if y’ask me.”

Flora giggles.  _ “So  _ lame!”

Not one to miss out, Miles jumps in with, “Sounds like a load of  _ bollocks _ to me!”

A couple of students passing them in the hallway startle at his shout. But at the same time Dani says Miles’ name in her best warning tone, Jamie replies, “You said it. But believe me, kid, we can hear you properly at a  _ normal _ volume. Spare my ears, won’t you?” Dani flashes her an appreciative glance, but she can’t tell if Jamie sees it.

Soon after they set up camp in the waiting room, Dani fires off a text to the kids’ uncle, and Professor Wingrave swings by to pick up the siblings early. He stammers out several apologies, to which Dani says, “It’s okay, Professor, I won’t be pressing charges.” His expression somehow becomes even _more_ stricken, and Jamie stifles a laugh into her fist. After an awkward pause, he says, “Oh— yes, very funny, Dani. I’ll see you in class.”

Once they’re gone, Dani is a little bit confused, and not because she got hit in the head. For some reason Jamie is  _ still  _ here sitting next to her in the bland white-walled waiting room, legs stretched out in a V shape with her clasped hands hanging between them.

“You, um... you don’t have to stay, you know,” Dani pipes up, risking a flighty glance in her direction. “I don’t think I’m injured enough to forget the way back across campus.”

Jamie meets her gaze, and Dani suspects that she only smiles to make Dani feel better. Why would she want to be here, after all? Surely she’s itching to leave. “‘s only polite. Was  _ my _ ball that hurt you, after all,” Jamie points out.  _ Of course. She just wants to be nice. That’s the only reason she would stay.  _ “Besides, I’d like to make sure you’re alright.” The last sentence comes out a little quieter and rushed, like an afterthought. She doesn’t look at Dani for a minute after that.

“Okay... thanks. Really.” Dani rubs her bare arms, leaning down to rifle through her bag for the hoodie that she’s praying wasn’t accidentally left on the quad. She can’t find it, but a moment later the very same item is deposited in her lap.

“Saw it lying there on the grass,” Jamie mumbles.

Dani feels like a broken record saying “Thank you” again, but it’s a welcome feeling, showing gratitude to someone for being so kind. Dani is more used to saying “Sorry” over and over again, and no doubt she’ll soon start saying that to Jamie too when she can’t repay her for her kindness. Dani picks at the frayed edge of a rip in her jeans and asks, “So do you play on the school’s team?”

Jamie snorts. “No, I could never. I just kick around for the hell of it. Only teammates I ever had were my brothers growing up.”

“Oh yeah, you said you have two, right?” Dani makes a big show of thinking, rolling her eyes to the ceiling. “You give me... rebellious youngest child vibes.”

Jamie’s snort is louder this time, and Dani can’t help the little glow of satisfaction that sparks in her chest. “Nope, I’m in the middle. Technically I was the youngest, though, ‘til my mum cheated.” She seems to startle at her own words, abruptly sitting up from her restless slouch and wincing amid a laugh. “Ah... my bad. Dunno why I said that.”

Dani tries not to laugh along with her. “No, uh, don’t worry. I get it. My mom...” She pauses, considering how to arrange her words. “Well, I just try to be grateful I still have her, I guess. Miles and Flora, they lost both their parents a couple years ago. It’s hard to imagine not having either.”

Jamie ducks her head. “Yeah. They’re good kids, though. Football skills aside.” She starts messing with the zipper on her bag while Dani continues to tug at loose threads of denim; it makes her ponder better uses for such fidgety fingers. “Guess we have some sort of kinship, don’t you think?” Jamie says suddenly. “What with the shitty parent situation an’ all. Dead, deadbeat, pick your poison.”

Dani can do nothing but nod. If she thinks much more about it, she’ll start thinking about her dad, and that won’t do her any good. Luckily, right then her name is called. She goes back and perches herself on an exam table with that annoying waxy paper crackling under her ass. She has a light shined in her eyes, gets asked a few questions, and is ultimately given a clean bill of health. They tell her she doesn’t have a concussion, just a nasty bruise that’ll take some time to fade. 

The nurse starts to speedrun through his spiel about putting ice on the wound and taking over-the-counter painkillers, but he hesitates when they emerge back into the waiting area and Jamie immediately sits up in her chair, seeking Dani’s eyes from across the room. Dani is kind of awestruck that she’s still here waiting for her; she’d half expected to return to no one. And when Jamie matches Dani’s tentative smile with one of her own, Dani is all of a sudden dizzy for reasons unrelated to her injury. She almost doesn’t hear the nurse ask, “Would you like me to repeat the care instructions to both you and your girlfriend?”

Dani never thought it was possible to choke on air until now. “No! I mean, no, thank you. I think I got it.” She shuffles slowly across the room towards Jamie, mind reeling as she struggles to process what just happened. Is there tension between them? Like— _romantic_ tension? Some kind of _chemistry?_ Dani feels exposed, like somehow everyone knows the events of that night. She and Jamie might as well be stomping around wearing sandwich boards reading _“WE HAD SEX!”_

“So? What’s the prognosis?” Jamie asks, none the wiser to Dani’s inner turmoil. “Still got a few months to live?”

Dani chuckles despite— well,  _ everything. _ She bends down to retrieve her bag, swinging it over her shoulder as she leads Jamie to the exit. “You stayed,” she says, unable to move past that. “You didn’t...”

“But I did.” Jamie shrugs. “‘s no big deal. Had nowhere else to be.”

They step back out into the warm sunshine, a welcome respite from the stark icebox that was the health center. Jamie wasn’t wrong— they don’t exactly go out of their way to encourage repeat visits. That’s probably intentional, though.

“Well, I don’t have a concussion, so that’s good,” Dani finally fills her in. 

Jamie blows out a giant breath. “What a relief.”

She seems about to say something else; the dust between them still hasn’t settled yet. But at that moment Dani lets go of the question that’s been pestering her all afternoon since Jamie approached her and the kids. “I don’t get it— why are you okay hanging around me now?” Jamie comes to a halt in the middle of the path, narrowing her eyes as Dani goes on, “Do you feel some kind of...  _ obligation  _ towards me or something? Just because we... because of what happened? I don’t know the etiquette, I don’t know how this stuff works, but it seemed  _ pretty _ uncomplicated when you all but shoved me out of your room the other day.”

Jamie opens her mouth, closes it, then says calmly, “Dani, listen, I...” Her stare drifts off somewhere to Dani’s left, one hand flying up to work a few curls loose from her hair tie. Her next exhale appears to give her some sort of release, and gradually her eyes work their way back to Dani’s. “I’ve been nothing but honest with you so far, so I’ll keep being honest. I... it’s funny, actually.”  _ Funny?  _ A corner of Jamie’s mouth quirks up, but that only further clouds Dani’s understanding of the situation. “‘Cause, um, y’see, I  _ wanted  _ to avoid you. That was the plan. But then earlier today, on the quad, I saw you sittin’ out in the sun and you looked... well, anyway, I found myself walking right up to you, Dani. ‘s like I wasn’t even in control of my feet.”

She stops there, letting Dani’s brain marinate in that information for a minute. “So...” Dani swallows. “You’re saying you  _ want  _ to stay away from me, but you can’t?” Jamie doesn’t respond right away, so Dani adds, “Well, don’t get me wrong. I don’t want to be a bother. You have my permission to avoid me.” She’s on the verge of walking away when finally, earnestly, Jamie speaks.

“We— we could be friends. If that’s alright.” Jamie’s words are stilted and don’t do anything to slow the gears whirring in Dani’s head. They stand there in limbo for a long moment, shade from a tree overhead dappling their faces, and Dani can’t prevent her gaze from flicking down to Jamie’s lips. Lips that she kissed at some point, a few days and an entire alternate universe ago. 

“Friends,” Dani repeats slowly. The word tastes different now that Jamie has used it too. “Is... is this a joke?”

Jamie blinks rapidly, her brows lifting. “Course not.”

At this point, Dani isn’t sure if it’s her own wandering thoughts or Jamie’s evasiveness that’s tormenting her more. She supposes there’s only one way to find out. 

She fishes her phone out of her pocket and presses it into Jamie’s hand. (It’s odd, Dani realizes vaguely, that this entire time she hadn’t even thought to check on the state of her face on her phone camera. She’s been too busy looking at Jamie’s face instead.)

“Put in your number,” Dani tells her. “I’ll text you sometime... if I, uh, don’t see you in the hallway.”

A few minutes later, she’s back in her dorm with Jamie’s name now among her contacts, and Dani is almost positive she won’t be able to think about anything else for a while. Biting back a sigh, she starts tapping out an email to Professor Grose requesting an extension for that essay. Chances are she’ll need all the extra time she can get.


	3. i'm turning the page now, am i forgiven?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Anyone could walk in here at any second, and the walls between this room and neighboring dorms are paper-thin. But as far as Jamie is concerned, Dani is this planet’s sole other inhabitant, beautiful and shivering and all out of words, and Jamie will do all she can to unravel her completely.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ...and from here onward, this tortured writer thus confirms the prophecy that this story's rating would go up. she claims it's doubtful that it'll reach explicit levels, but what does she know?
> 
> chapter title taken from "love i'm given" by ellie goulding and lyrics in story from "you never knew" by haim.

_ How would you feel if we maybe got coffee together sometime? Like, the way friends get coffee together. _

Jamie blinks at her phone for a minute, then a breathy laugh escapes her lungs. So  _ this _ is the first text she receives from Dani down the hall, and of course it has impeccable grammar and punctuation.  _ Well, she does want to be a teacher, doesn’t she?  _ Jamie feels bad that she hadn’t even known that; she’d had to ask Rebecca for scraps of information about Dani like a hungry animal begging to be fed. Despite framing her request in as casual a manner as possible, Jamie had  _ still  _ been subjected to Rebecca’s knowing stare and head tilt.  _ “What?”  _ she’d snapped at her roommate.  _ “Just curious, is all.”  _

Unfortunately, Jamie is stuck in class now and can’t do much besides watch the text pop up in the upper corner of her laptop’s screen, then slide away a moment later. Her fingers restlessly drum the sides of her phone, which is hidden in her lap under the desk.  _ Hmm.  _ The question isn’t whether or not to text back right away— she’s  _ definitely  _ doing that, fuck that wimpy wait-five-minutes social etiquette— but whether to text back on her phone or laptop. She’s become a master at concealing her phone under the table over the years, but she can just as easily disguise typing a text on her computer into taking detailed notes from the sparse PowerPoint Professor Harris currently has up on the screen.  _ Yeah,  _ she can pull this off.

Dropping her phone back into the unzipped bookbag between her legs, her fingers fly up to her keyboard.

_ i’m down. name the time and place _

When five minutes pass with no response, Jamie tries not to feel disappointed. Knowing Dani, she’s probably following that silly social rule. Or googling the hours of some nearby coffee shop. Or typing then erasing ten different variations of the same response. Shit, maybe Jamie  _ is _ coming on too strong. Maybe that’s why there was almost a week of silence until now. Jamie wouldn’t admit that she’s dreaded running into Dani in the dorm hallway or in the showers, but she also wouldn’t say that she  _ hasn’t  _ worried about that exact scenario.

Class ends up getting dismissed a few minutes early, which only provides more time for her to overanalyze. But right when Jamie is about to slip out unnoticed among her classmates, she hears her name.

“Jamie? Mind if we chat for a minute?”  _ Damn.  _ She really thought she got away with texting.

Pursing her lips, she swings back around and shoves her hands in the pockets of her joggers, striding up to the professor with a cheap grin clumsily arranged on her face.  _ “Hey.  _ How’s it going, Doc?”

“Alright. I’ll just get right to it— as you know, I’m not only your professor but your advisor as well. And we also both know you’re very smart, Jamie. Your grades don’t necessarily reflect that, but what they do indicate is that you have potential.” Professor Harris meets her eyes seriously, leaning over his podium in a way that makes Jamie feel appreciated rather than intimidated. “And I  _ truly  _ think it would be in your best interest to start leaning towards a specific major and adding on another course or two this semester. It’ll help you get ahead, and I think you can handle it.”

Jamie looks down. “I s’pose.”

“At least promise me you’ll consider it. You can explore just about any subject you like and gain a couple credits while you’re at it. Anthropology, music, psychology...”

“Yeah, I’ll think about it,” Jamie mumbles. “You have a good one, Professor.” She turns to go, shoving her shoulder into the door to open it. As soon as she bursts through the building’s double doors into the fresh air, her phone buzzes.

_ How about the library cafe at three tomorrow? _

Jamie thinks for a second. She has a class that ends at twenty after three, but she can skip out early.

_ see you then. _

Dani's response is quick this time.

_ Until then, pal!  _ 🤗

_ Pal?  _ She can’t be serious. No one else is around, so Jamie lets herself smile.  _ Dork,  _ she thinks. But she isn’t sure who exactly she’s calling a dork here.

* * *

Jamie has a shift at the pub tonight, so she stops back in her dorm earlier than usual. She finds Rebecca studying at her desk— or, at least, it  _ would  _ be considered studying if Peter wasn’t constantly interrupting her. His scowling little face fills Rebecca’s phone screen, which is propped up against some books on her desk, but Jamie can still hear him loud and clear from across the small room.

“That Jamie who just came in?” Peter’s voice booms, entirely too big for the size of the dorm and for Jamie’s patience. “How’s my favorite charmer doing? Who’s your latest catch, or did you already toss ‘em back?”

Jamie bristles but doesn’t turn around. He doesn’t deserve the satisfaction of eye contact, and besides, she doesn’t feel like killing via laser vision today. “Rot in hell, you cross-eyed cock-up,” she growls, grabbing her toiletry bag from her wardrobe and marching back toward the door.

“Jamie, please—” Rebecca starts, but Jamie cuts her off by slamming the door closed behind her.

_ “Jamie, please”?  _ Her thoughts bubble and spit like a boiling pot as she moves the short distance down the hall to the bathroom.  _ Who does she think she is, taking his side? Fuck the lot of them.  _

She throws her entire weight into the bathroom door, and it squeaks open easily under the pressure, hitting the adjacent wall with a jarring thud. The bathroom appears empty at first, and Jamie almost doesn’t notice that one of the showers is occupied, clouds of steam curling like white smoke around the plastic curtain. She doesn’t pay any attention to it, minding her own business as she sets down her bag on the counter next to the sink and freshens up for work. Brush teeth, coax hair into a marginally neater knot, swipe on some eyeliner.

But right when she’s about to leave, something skitters across the floor behind her. She glances away from the mirror, peering over her shoulder at a shampoo bottle that must’ve slipped out of the shower occupant’s hand. A hushed curse is heard a moment later, confirming Jamie’s suspicions. She hesitates, then approaches the dropped item, considering kicking it within the girl’s reach. Out of curiosity, she squints down at the bottle’s label— it’s something floral, coconut, overkill compared to the minty stuff Jamie prefers— then opens her mouth to tell the girl she can hand it back to her.

That all flies out the window, however, when the curtain suddenly whips back, allowing a blast of hot coconut-scented air heavy with shower mist to suffocate Jamie’s last bit of common sense. It’s a strikingly  _ familiar  _ scent, she realizes. Her eyes leap up to the stricken face of the mysterious shower user, who clearly hadn’t expected anyone else to be in here. Dani is standing mere inches away with a purple towel hurriedly wrapped around her body and the shower still running behind her. Her skin is damp and shining, pale soft hair darkened by water and slicked back over her shoulders. The bruise from last week has since faded, but is nonetheless prominent on her bare face, a light blue patch of sky on her forehead. Her knuckles are white where they clutch the towel to her chest. Jamie’s heart takes up residence in her throat.

She wants to say something,  _ has  _ to say something. This doesn’t look good, does it? Jamie is standing  _ right there, staring.  _ Dani’s thoughts will probably always be a mystery to her, but they especially are right now, like she has a brick wall of a skull protecting the inner workings of her brain. Jamie takes a deep breath, and then another, trying not to think how the smallest movement could do so much; she’s one step away from pressing her body into Dani’s, one inhale away from sighing her next breath into Dani’s mouth, three words away from telling Dani that she’s the picture of everything Jamie needs right this second.

But no words  _ are _ needed, really. Dani meets Jamie’s eyes and  _ fuck,  _ Jamie has never seen eyes so clear like windows, nor a blue so dark with want. Jamie can hear her quick breathing, the rise and fall of her chest louder than fireworks. This can’t be the same person who Jamie walked up to on the quad last week. This can’t be the same girl who texted Jamie hours ago using the word  _ “pal.”  _ But somehow, she is the exact same Dani, the one who has a real talent of blindsiding Jamie at the most inopportune moments. All of a sudden Jamie is revived, the stresses of the day and unease at her upcoming work shift all dissolving into the fragrant mist that surrounds Dani like wings.

They surge forward at the same time, hanging on each other’s lips like theirs are the only ones that exist. They’re not the only people in the universe— anyone could walk in here at any second, and the walls between this room and neighboring dorms are paper-thin— but as far as Jamie is concerned, Dani is this planet’s sole other inhabitant, beautiful and shivering and all out of words, and Jamie will do all she can to unravel her completely.

Jamie swings them toward the shower wall, which is the lesser of evils when it comes to surfaces in here. Dani emits a soft cry when her back presses into the tile, but she makes no moves to counter it, instead fastening the fingers of one hand around Jamie’s waist and yanking her hips forward, anchoring them to hers. Jamie groans against her mouth, appreciative of the gesture. She grinds a little against Dani’s thigh, but she knows she can do better than that. Barely noticing her half-drenched clothes, she slots one leg between Dani’s and rolls her hips hard to return the favor. Everything that leaves Dani’s mouth is equally as incoherent as the hurricane in Jamie’s mind, and she wants to hear more of it, wants to draw out all of her mumblings and moans with lips and teeth and fingers. It was wise to keep the shower running, though it only barely obscures Dani’s little sounds.

Dani’s hand travels away from Jamie’s waist, and that gives her an idea. Breaking the kiss and staring into Dani’s heavy-lidded eyes, Jamie takes hold of both her wrists, freeing Dani’s grip on the towel. She watches Dani’s throat tremble as the makeshift garment falls into a puddle of fabric around their feet. With that barrier vanquished, Jamie lifts Dani’s wrists up above her head and pins them to the slick wall, trailing kisses down Dani’s arm until she arrives at the junction of her neck and shoulder. Jamie’s tongue chases a rivulet of water sliding along Dani’s collarbone, and the taste of it leaves a sweetness in her mouth from the soap. 

The urge to strip off her own shirt and press herself bare against Dani’s torso is overwhelming, but a rational fragment of Jamie’s mind tells her that the minutes are waning until she has to get to work. Cursing the timing of this— it should be no surprise that the less she plans to see Dani, the more she runs into her, and the less convenient it is— Jamie resists the temptation and instead puts all her focus on Dani rather than herself. She buries her face one last time in Dani’s neck, sucking on the perfumed skin until she knows there’ll be a mark left behind. 

It’s hard to breathe through the thickening steam and Dani’s lips constantly seeking Jamie’s like a magnet. But she has to disappoint her, if only for a moment. Jamie tears her mouth away and drops to her knees, pressing her palms into Dani’s thighs and nudging them apart. She checks for a reaction above her, but all she gets is a faint whimper and the sight of Dani’s head thrown back against the wall, eyes rolled so far back they might as well be sealed shut. Jamie pauses, then gives no warning before diving into her. Her tongue laps at an agonizingly slow pace to start before she quickens her speed, drinking Dani in with an insatiable thirst. She’s going a little faster than she would prefer, but there isn’t time nor is this the place for Jamie to gradually lure a climax out of her. 

When she feels Dani come undone, legs trembling around her, Jamie backs off slowly, working her through her high until she’s sucked away every last drop of ecstasy. Jamie sits back and counts her shallow breaths, now aware of the uncomfortable weight of her damp clothes and Dani’s discarded towel biting into her knees. Bracing one hand against the wall, Jamie rises to her feet again, grazing a thumb under Dani’s chin. The touch compels Dani to lower her face to Jamie’s again, allowing Jamie to brush one last lingering kiss on her parted lips. Jamie tries with all her strength to wipe away the remainder of her desire with this kiss, but it’s no use. The only way to solve this will be getting the hell out of Dani’s magnetic pull.

Without catching Dani’s gaze, Jamie shoves aside the curtain and steps out of the shower stall. But then her eyes snag on the fallen shampoo bottle, and she can’t stop herself from picking it up and offering it to Dani, who accepts it without a word. They’re both full of  _ withouts,  _ it seems. Jamie grabs her bag from the counter and is out the door in another couple of strides.

Back in their dorm, Rebecca has put away her books and thankfully seems to have ended her call with Peter. She’s laying on her stomach on her bed when Jamie comes in, but she sits up to get a better look at her roommate.

“Jamie, listen, I’m sorry about...” She trails off, a frown creasing her features. “Uhh, are you alright?”

Realizing she hasn’t spoken for the past several minutes, Jamie clears the pent-up words in her throat— a collection of curses, Dani’s name, and other less appropriate things— but isn’t able to wave the fog of arousal out of her mind. Fuck, if only she had time to take care of it before work. “‘m fine,” she grunts, not bothering to turn around as she gathers her keys and drawstring. Through the haze, the reminder to water her little cactus plant pokes her brain. Jamie hums and swings her head around. She finds a plastic water bottle sitting on her desk, half-crushed with only a few lukewarm sips left in it. Not ideal, but it’ll work. She seizes it and carefully tilts it into the thirsty succulent’s pot until the dry soil is soaked.

“Honey, you’re soaking wet,” Rebecca protests, of course not taking “fine” as a valid answer.  _ You bet your arse I’m fucking soaking wet. _ Rebecca hops down from the bed but doesn’t risk approaching Jamie just yet. When no explanation is offered, she pushes, “D- did you take a shower  _ in  _ your clothes?”

“I don’t have time for this, Bec,” Jamie sighs. “Have to get to work.”

“Okay, but—”

“Cheers,” Jamie says, breezing out the door. Rebecca can grovel to her on Peter’s behalf later— not that she wants it, nor that he gives half a fuck about having offended her. It’s a weekly occurrence at this point.

She moves quickly out to the parking lot, with a brief glance at her phone telling her she will definitely be a few minutes late. Oh, well. When she collapses into her car— an old rust-orange Volkswagen beater— and peeks at herself in the visor mirror, only one thing comes to mind:  _ it was worth it.  _ Dani had barely lifted a finger, yet she had somehow managed to dismantle Jamie’s composure in a matter of minutes with her vocal cords alone. Her minimal makeup is all but melted halfway down her face, and her hair is frizzed worse than usual, but the memory of marking up Dani’s neck and tasting the core of her is more than enough to forgive it. 

Jamie tugs her shirt collar away from her neck, impressed by how much heat her body has retained since leaving that shower stall. The back of her shirt is like a second skin, painted onto her with a mixture of water and sweat. Jamie sits there for a moment, considering. She places the key in the ignition but doesn’t turn it. Her eyes slide back and forth, checking out the windows. The carpark is deserted.

Thankful for the gathering dusk outside, Jamie slides lower in her seat and adjusts it back, one hand sneaking past her waistband before she really realizes what she’s doing. She has a memory now, tangible, real. She has a memory of her and Dani together, an actual solid scene of Dani in her most flustered state. She has an unforgettable flickering film reel including sound, including Dani’s desperate moans backed by the unbroken shower stream hitting the floor. Jamie got away from her, but  _ god,  _ Dani is inescapable when she’s everywhere in Jamie’s head.

And so her mind wanders, building a fantasy of what would have happened if she’d only had more time. She would spin Dani around so her back was facing her, hair swept aside to show off the vine of pale flowers blooming over her perfect skin. How fitting that it’s moonflowers they got to match. Temptingly beautiful, finicky to bloom. Poisonous to consume, but not to touch. There’s a beauty to her, Jamie thinks, that would be the same even if Dani were to be flipped inside out. Jamie’s breathing grows ragged. It might be too late for her now. Keeping her hands away will be hard, but her mouth? Impossible. 

It doesn’t take long for Jamie to find her release when she thinks like that. She nearly utters Dani’s name aloud, but stops herself. If she can at least manage that, then surely she isn’t too far gone yet.

* * *

The pub is busy for a Thursday night, and Jamie knows exactly why. She goes in the front entrance, bypassing a line of people waiting to get in, and is immediately met with a crush of people inside. Every table, booth, and barstool is filled, and the atmosphere is buzzing with anticipation. With a heavy sigh, she makes her way through the throng of tipsy “pubbers,” as she and her coworkers call their customers. Navigating the crowd would be difficult for most, but Jamie is a master at it by now.

“Really? Open mic on a Thursday?” Jamie wastes no time accosting Owen once she extracts herself from the insanity on the other side of the bar. She sets down her stuff in the back, snatching her apron off its hook. “Guess you want me to wait tables?”

“Ah,  _ actually...”  _ Her boss grits his teeth in what he must imagine is a friendly smile. “I’d like you to kick off open mic night, if you wouldn’t mind.”

Jamie pinches the bridge of her nose and leans against the counter. “C’mon. Today has been maddening and I really don’t—”

“Please, Jamie?” It’s so unfair of Owen to pull out the fucking puppy dog eyes. “You always get everyone all pepped up.”

She narrows her eyes and flicks an irritated hand in the direction of the deafening mob on the other side of the bar. “So  _ this  _ isn’t ‘pepped up’ enough for you?”

“They’ll be...  _ singing  _ your praises,” Owen says, clasping his hands in a prayer-like gesture.

Jamie lets out a groan that is easily obscured by the clamor surrounding them. “Guitar’s in the boot. Be right back.”

“You  _ rock,  _ Jamie,” Owen tells her when she returns from her car a minute later, apron replaced by her ancient acoustic guitar. “Literally.”

“Stop that,” she insists, playfully pushing him to the side as she saunters toward the exit at the other end of the bar. “I’m just saving them from your dreadful comedy routine.”

Owen’s hand flies to his chest, aghast. “You take that back!”

Jamie ignores him, ducking under the counter and carving a path through the crowd to get to the makeshift stage set up in the rear of the dining area. Owen tends to make open mic nights a last-minute decision, and the mediocre little stage reflects that; it is quite literally nothing more than four cinder blocks topped with a piece of heavy-duty plywood and covered with a black tarp. But it looks decent enough in the dim lighting of the pub, and when there’s a microphone and instruments, no one really cares what’s under them. 

Guitar and football lessons were both out of the question when Jamie was a kid, so she’d taught herself how to play. She never sang, however, until one open mic night here a few years ago. She’d walked in on a whim, and when she stood on this second-rate stage for the first time, something urged her to sing along with the instrumental she had memorized. And for some reason, people loved it. She ended up with a job and several loyal listeners who dig her sound. Jamie has rocked this stage many times since, often borrowing others’ instruments since she lacks much else besides her barely in-tune guitar and her raw voice. But tonight, she feels like doing something more mellow.

Fetching a folding chair from behind the platform, Jamie sets it up and sits down, adjusting the microphone to her height. “Evening,” she mutters into it, swiping hair out of her face. The audience quiets, all eyes turning toward her. She knows she looks like a wreck. It doesn’t matter, though, and it doesn’t matter who’s fault it is; she might as well look the part. People here eat up the emotionally wounded. “Met a girl,” Jamie tells them. The regulars out there offer a celebratory murmur, and those less familiar are spurred on by them, tossing in their own supportive  _ ooooohs.  _

Then Jamie hesitates, her fingers squirming where they’re wrapped around the mic stand. She can feel her jaw twitch. She has the physical memory of Dani’s body, but that won’t change Dani showing up at their coffee meet tomorrow with  _ “Hey there, buddy!”  _ on her lips and that  _ nothing happened  _ blankness in her eyes. Jamie has already read the scene before it’s been written.

“Anyway, um.” She clears her throat, glancing down as she moves her hands to the guitar. “This isn’t about her.” Then she begins.

_ It was a weight on my shoulders _

_ A strain on my back _

_ But I loved to have you right there by my side _

_ You couldn’t take it, you couldn’t take it _

_ Go on and say it _

_ Was my love too much for you to take? _

_ I guess you never knew what was good for you _

_ Don’t keep me waiting _

_ Say the words that you’re too scared to say _

_ I guess you never knew what was good for you _

_ I need to hear you say it— _


End file.
